


This Time, This Time

by PeopleCoveredInFish



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Light Angst, M/M, New Year's Eve, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 07:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5617864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeopleCoveredInFish/pseuds/PeopleCoveredInFish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oikawa calls in a favor, or alternately, [bangs hands on the table] FAKE DATING FAKE DATING FAKE DATING</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Time, This Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skytramp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skytramp/gifts).



> You got me on a cliff's edge, where I belong.
> 
> \- Hayley Kiyoko, "Cliff's Edge"

He hasn’t deleted the number.

The last time they had talked over the phone had been to confirm who was bringing the picnic basket and supplies to the beach, and who the sunblock and the beach chairs and the sun-spotted shower of kisses by the surf.

It’s been three months, and Oikawa is calling.

Ushijima doesn’t often sigh—it’s an automatic mechanism it would appear he was born without—but at this particular moment he expels a small huff of air and accepts the call.

“Oikawa,” he greets, voice caught in neutral.

“Don’t hang up,” is the reply, light as ever, and Ushijima hadn’t been considering it, but he positions his thumb near the button to end the call, just in case.

“I’m not.”

“That’s remarkably mature of you, Ushiwaka-chan.”

Ushijima says nothing, waits for Oikawa to continue.

There’s a brief silence, and then, “I need a favor.”

He wants to reply that even this is too much to ask, but settles for, “Oh?”

“I need you to come over to my mom’s for New Year’s Eve and act like we’re still dating.”

Ushijima ends the call.

He has enough time to study the sales rack of khaki pants and even compare a few prices before his phone buzzes again. “No,” he says, into the receiver.

“You picked up,” says Oikawa, voice laden with surprise. It’s mostly false.

“I’m not doing it.”

“Hold on,” is the reply, “don’t you want to know why?”

Ushijima pauses. “Not particularly.”

“I’ll practice with you after, if you want.”

He stops considering the merits of the particular pair of pants in front of him. Getting to practice with Oikawa again wouldn’t be without its advantages, all things considered. “Why?”

“Because this is important to me.”

Ushijima walks away from the display and heads towards the button-down section. “You want me to ask why, again.”

“Well done!”

The voice on the other end of the phone, while tinny, is still assured and confident. That hasn’t changed. “My mother really likes you, you know,” continues Oikawa.

So that was it. Ushijima takes a turn for the exit, nodding at the store clerk as she bows him out. “You haven’t told her.”

“You’re awfully quick on the uptake, today. Shall we say eight o’clock?”

“I didn’t say yes, Oikawa.”

The voice in his ear turns to pleading. “Every Saturday. I’ll practice with you every Saturday this coming term.”

He thinks of Oikawa’s face when he tosses the ball, confident and edging into pride. “That is acceptable.”

The day arrives, and Ushijima waits until precisely twenty minutes until eight before taking the bus over to the station nearest the Oikawa residence. He had considered running, but did not think it polite to arrive having sweated through his dress shirt, even if Oikawa deserved that kind of humiliation.

Besides, Ushijima thought, Oikawa would probably like it.

The arrangement of bamboo shoots and pine branches on the porch welcomes him along with the coming new year, and Oikawa’s mother opens the screen door from inside the house. “Ushijima-kun! I’m so glad you could come.”

“Please forgive the intrusion,” says Ushijima.

She ushers him inside. The house is exactly as he remembers, neat and clean and soft around the edges. He steps out of his shoes and into the pair of guest slippers Oikawa-san has laid out for him. “Would you like tea? Tooru should be down shortly.”

“Thank you.”

“You haven’t visited for months! Please come around more often.”

Ushijima opens his mouth to reply, before realizing that anything he says has the potential to make his now-single life quite awkward. Where is Oikawa? He settles on a nod.

As if summoned, Oikawa’s voice drifts around the corner of the kitchen. “Kasan, you should have called me!”

His mother laughs. “Don’t lie, Tooruchin. You said you’d be a few minutes.”

“ _Kasan!_ ”

Oikawa sounds indignant, and Ushijima fights to suppress a smile before remembering that he’s here to put on a show. He lets it bloom.

When Oikawa sits down next to him at the table, it’s to rest his head against Ushijima’s shoulder. After a moment of hesitation, Ushijima drapes his arm around him.

It has to look natural. He tries to relax.

The tightening cords of muscle in his shoulders are making this very difficult. Oikawa is butting his head against Ushijima’s triceps like a persistent cat. Ushijima begins to stroke his hair quite before realizing what he is doing, lifting the teacup to his lips with the other hand.

“It’s wonderful to see you two together, and so happy,” says Oikawa’s mother, beaming.

Did they look happy? Ushijima catches Oikawa in his gaze; his eyes are closed and shifting behind their lids, a smile tracing the full line of his lips. The picture of contentment, but perhaps that’s just because he’s not looking at Ushijima.

He tries not to think about how familiar the curve of that head feels against his fingers.

The evening passes methodically, sliding through their lives like beads on a string. They finish the tea; play chess on the kotatsu—two wins for each of them. When midnight nears, they slurp soba, Oikawa pausing halfway through to sit with his mouth open until Ushijima obligingly feeds him the noodles. They drip broth over the chopsticks, Ushijima’s hands, and the tablecloth. Fortunately, Oikawa gives up this childish game before long.

“You boys should get some sleep,” says Oikawa’s mother, “we’ll be visiting the shrine in the morning.”

Ushijima asks, “Should I set up in the spare room?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she replies, “you can both sleep in Tooru’s room, of course. Just like always.”

“Just like always,” repeats Oikawa, with a look at Ushijima that could shrivel the skin under his fingernails.

Ushijima is not sure what he’s done to provoke this, but he bids Oikawa-san goodnight and follows Oikawa upstairs. This gives him an unobstructed and close-up view of Oikawa’s ass, which he stares at resolutely in an attempt to convince himself that everything is fine. He’s going to sleep on the floor near Oikawa, of course. Even when they were dating, sharing the small bed had been a bit of an ordeal. Oikawa’s ass is pert and round. Everything is fine.

While Oikawa is brushing his teeth, Ushijima sets up a makeshift bed next to Oikawa’s, out of spare sheets and pillows. He is just climbing into it when Oikawa returns from the bathroom.

Oikawa laughs at him. “Are you stupid?”

“I attend Shiratorizawa Academy. I do not think they would have admitted me were that the case.”

“It was rhetorical, Ushiwaka-chan.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

Oikawa sits down on the bed; pats the space next to him. “What will kasan think tomorrow when she comes in and you’re asleep on the floor?”

Ushijima considers. “I see,” he admits, taking the seat offered, leaving a thigh-wide distance between them.

They sit in silence for a moment. Ushijima folds his hands together in his lap. Oikawa never could stand stillness; he fidgets with the corner of the bed sheet before Ushijima decides to be merciful, getting up to take his turn in the bathroom.

He looks in the mirror while brushing his teeth. That Ushijima squints back at him, pupils small and sleepy, toothbrush slipping industriously across his molars. He feels like the small segment of his stomach that was prepared for tonight has been scooped out, hollowed. The Ushijima in the mirror appears ready to tremble in the face of his confines.

He leaves before he can see more. Oikawa is already lying in bed, sheets pulled up to his chin. He does not look at Ushijima when he crawls in next to him.

There really isn’t enough room for both of them. Ushijima finds that his entire right side is pressed up, seam-like, against Oikawa’s left. He also finds himself wondering about Oikawa’s sense of humor. “Why are you doing this?”

“I literally just said—”

“No, not this,” says Ushijima, gesturing to the bed—and knocking Oikawa’s arm in the process, “this.”

“Articulate as ever,” says Oikawa.

He manages to turn over so he’s facing Ushijima, auburn hair brushing across his eyes. “Kasan,” he begins, “she said that this year is the happiest I’ve looked in, well. In a long time.”

“Are you?”

“What?”

“Happy,” says Ushijima, and his pulse strains at the thought.

Oikawa smiles. It’s soft, in the dim light. He can’t authenticate it. “She wouldn’t stop asking about you after we…after you stopped coming over.”

“Ah,” says Ushijima.

“You didn’t think it was because I _missed_ you, did you?”

Ushijima almost wants to be hurt by that, craves the sensation of something definitive carving him apart by the joints. “No,” he says, truthfully, “I never thought that.”

He wishes he could be surprised when Oikawa kisses him.

Two heartbeats in and he shifts into muscle memory, swiping his tongue over the closing of Oikawa’s mouth, and into its opening; they move against each other like moths enflamed. Having Oikawa in his arms again is a brush fire, white-hot and catching, and he knows he has to let go.

“Oikawa.”

The latter, face centimeters from Ushijima’s own, peers at him through the dark. “Mmm?”

“Goodnight,” says Ushijima, and turns over.

Oikawa says nothing. Perhaps he is sulking; Ushijima does not check.

He chases sleep through the early-morning haze, knocking elbows or knees with Oikawa every so often. It’s not quite enough to pull him off the carousel of his dreams, which shifts into change and paradox faster than he can follow.

When he wakes, to the shaft of morning sunlight peeking through the curtains, he’s holding Oikawa in his arms, chest to his back.

Spooning him.

Oikawa is still asleep. Ushijima can’t move. He tries not to focus on the warmth Oikawa’s body is emitting, the hinted smoothness of his back under his t-shirt. Oikawa’s breathing is shallow, but regular, his mouth slightly open. How many mornings had they woken up together like this?

Ushijima pushes the thought to a back corner of his mind and holds Oikawa through his first blinks into daylight. He can’t see Oikawa’s face, so he only knows that he must be blinking when he feels him stirring in his arms, and groaning. “You can let go of me,” he mumbles.

Ushijima grunts in assent, and is about to comply when there’s a knock on the door. “Yes, Kasan,” says Oikawa, “come in.”

She pokes her head around the door. “Oh, just look at you two.”

“We’re getting up,” says Oikawa, before burrowing deeper into Ushijima’s arms.

She smiles, and closes the door. Oikawa rolls away from him and sits up. They dress in silence.

The walk to the Oikawa’s neighborhood shrine is quick, and brisk in the chill morning air. There is already a small group gathered by the incense, even at this early hour. Oikawa’s mother is quickly drawn into conversation with what must be an old friend, and Ushijima and Oikawa are left to their own devices.

Oikawa tosses a coin from his pocket into the offering box and bows, twice, and then claps his hands. Ushijima follows.

They settle into silent prayer.

A light breeze whisks through the shrine, wafting the incense towards them in a cloud, tousling Oikawa’s hair—in an artful way that never seems to work on Ushijima; Oikawa looks even more like a pop idol now.

Ushijima is not sure that he had made the right decision, breaking it off with Oikawa.

“Ushiwaka-chan,” says Oikawa, and Ushijima doesn’t bother to correct him, “would you like an arrow to take home?”

The Hamaya, which were gathered at the front of the shrine, were shafted in white with red trimming, with charms tied around the fletching. “I would,” says Ushijima, accepting one from Oikawa’s hands. “Thank you, Oikawa.”

Oikawa looks right at him when he says, “I’ll see you next Saturday, then?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” says Ushijima, and the letters nearly catch in his throat.

He says his goodbyes to both the Oikawas, and makes his way back to the bus stop, the wind blowing the last of the leaves across the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a (very) late birthday present for Laura!
> 
> New Year's Eve in Japan is generally constituted by quiet family time, unlike in the West. I did some research on Japanese New Year traditions; but I apologize for any errors! Comments and/or kudos are always appreciated. Thanks for reading!


End file.
